Gingrich: Obama is Clinton's 3rd term

The Barack Obama presidency, he said, is quickly becoming “the third term of the Clintons.”

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“It’s think it’s fascinating,” Gingrich said in an interview with Human Events posted Friday. “You’re sort of seeing the beginning of the third term of the Clintons because the first two years of Obama was such a failure in popular acceptance.”

The former speaker of the House and possible candidate for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination said he sees Bill Clinton gaining power as his former staffers join the Obama administration.

“The president finds himself drawn more and more … to people who are Clintonites,” Gingrich said.

In the last few months, Obama has chosen Clinton’s commerce secretary Bill Daley as his White House chief of staff and Jack Lew for an encore performance as director of the Office of Management and Budget.

“All of it,” Gingrich said, “represents an increase in power for Bill Clinton.”

As Clinton officials have joined the Obama team, the president’s progressive supporters must be irked, the former House speaker said.

“It must be fascinating to be one of those left-wing activist groups that spent so much time and energy beating Hillary Clinton because they didn’t want to see this kind of administration,” he said.

Now, the White House is engaged in “almost a Chicago machine musical [chairs] game,” he said. “You’re replacing Rahm Emanuel of Chicago with Bill Daley of Chicago so that Rahm Emanuel can now replace Bill Daley’s brother as mayor of Chicago as Daly replaces Rahm Emanuel as chief of staff.”